Turkey waging yet another war against Armenians, a century after annihilating Ottoman Armenians is not something politically neutral that leaves any intellectual silent.
As the country is sinking, people are fleeing the ship. Until the end of August some 260,000 passports were issued. Do they smile in the photo? Where are they going? And who do they leave behind?
The tragedy engulfing the region has led some of us to accept, even glorify, the worst of options, the Taliban, dismissing the harm that will be done to Afghan women, children, Shiites and other minorities.
Condoleezza Rice in 2008 argued that democratic states in Iraq and Afghanistan were a “compelling component of our national interest.” Now, after failing miserably in both countries, the Americans are telling us, that the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate, and an Iraq ruled by militias, can be such compelling components.
Repression isn’t forgetting. They tell me to never forget, as if I ever will. I won’t ever forget. I won’t ever forget the glass, the blood, the screams or the panic.
I never wrote anything about the Aug. 4 explosion in my mother tongue. Because I am a mother. And the explosion made me a fragile mother. And with this fragility, my mother tongue too became fragile. My writing today is an attempt to recover my mother tongue.
Will there be a day, when we feel less compelled to look over our shoulder – or at our phones – with fear and suspicion? Is it really possible we will feel safe at home again?
Thirty years later, corruption is still rife in Kurdistan, and the wealth is controlled by the political elite. The Peshmerga forces are still divided between Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, despite the parties’ promises to unify them.
